Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Armed Forces of the World Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Will Germany rise again??
Necromancer    11/27/2008 9:27:13 PM
If USA withdraws from EU.
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: 1 2
longrifle       11/27/2008 11:04:46 PM
The United States of America is not one of the 27 member states of the European Union. 
 
Did you mean to say UK instead of USA?
 
Or perhaps did you mean to day NATO instead of EU?
 
Quote    Reply

doggone       11/30/2008 4:56:29 PM
I think the crux of the question is:  When the US pulls out of Europe will Germany take over the leadership role.?
 
It's doubtful: Europe is now so heavily interwoven. The whole of Europe is now one big Brillo pad investment infrastructure. Those countries are tied into each other, and dependent on each other, like never before. Europe isn't just re-invested within itself it's tied deeply into the US and the rest of the world as well. When the US went into recession so did the EU (and most everybody else).
 
In the old days of Europe each country was sovereign. It's own entity. Not so anymore. Now the borders are open and the currency is the same.
 
In military issues Germans are like everybody else. We all want our money spent on more cars, TVs, internet surfing, and medical insurance, but we don't want our money taken away to be spent on tanks (except for what is barely necessary to keep aggressors away).
 
There's little doubt that hard times can bring out hard leaders, and devastated standards of living can bring out devasting leaderships. However, as far as Europe is concerned, that economic web is already woven and you can't just cut those strings loose. For better or for worse, all of Europe will either rise again, together, or fall together.  
 
Quote    Reply

doggone       11/30/2008 5:11:36 PM
I think the crux of the question is:  When the US pulls out of Europe will Germany take over the leadership role.?
 
It's doubtful: Europe is now so heavily interwoven. The whole of Europe is now one big Brillo pad investment infrastructure. Those countries are tied into each other, and dependent on each other, like never before. Europe isn't just re-invested within itself it's tied deeply into the US and the rest of the world as well. When the US went into recession so did the EU (and most everybody else).
 
In the old days of Europe each country was sovereign. It's own entity. Not so anymore. Now the borders are open and the currency is the same.
 
In military issues Germans are like everybody else. We all want our money spent on more cars, TVs, internet surfing, and medical insurance, but we don't want our money taken away to be spent on tanks (except for what is barely necessary to keep aggressors away).
 
There's little doubt that hard times can bring out hard leaders, and devastated standards of living can bring out devasting leaderships. However, as far as Europe is concerned, that economic web is already woven and you can't just cut those strings loose. For better or for worse, all of Europe will either rise again, together, or fall together.  
 
Quote    Reply

peter24    Issues   12/3/2008 3:58:12 PM
 
Quote    Reply

peter24       12/4/2008 11:22:29 AM
Sorry, I'll try to copy-paste the link again so it works.  Re:  they have some issues.
 
 
 
 

 
Quote    Reply

peter24       12/4/2008 11:29:30 AM
last try:
 
>

 
Quote    Reply

Thomas    Not the US South   12/7/2008 5:56:08 PM
I think the questions labours under the misconception, that there are significant circles, that want the hitlerite or imperial Germany back. The parallel to "The South arises again."
The circles that could have had an interest has not been disenfranchised to the same extend: The German industry has its place in the modern German society - a thing the slaveholding agricultural ruling class of the Confederacy did not have in post Civil War USA.
 
I don't think many outside Europe fully realises the transformation Germany has gone through since WW2. Germany has gone more than out of its way to rise the security of her apprehensive neighbours - this in the realisation, that nothing in Europe passes against German interests. Germany has a finger in every pie and everybody has a finger in Germanys pie.
 
Quote    Reply

JFKY    Considering Germany's recent...   12/7/2008 6:19:03 PM
Past of ineffectual military interventions, in the Balkans, and in Afghanistan and now in Atalanta, I'd say "no."  Unless, by rising again you mean drinking lots of beer, and following legalistic rules of engagement that pretty much make their forces less dangerous than the Polizei...then yes German has risen again.
 
I know Nasty German Idiot and others will be unhappy and point out that KSK (?) have been in Afghanistan, and that's all well and good, but the BULK of German forces, pretty much in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and it seems in the Horn of Africa, are just going to sit around, and get bored, fat, and drunk...make some "shocking" Youtube videos that will get the Greens and the SDP all up in arms, or shout "Sieg Heil" at the wrong visiting Minister and spark Parliamentary outrage...in short, the vast majority of German forces will simply be an occasionally visible political symbol of the "New" Germany's place in the EU world...a world of law, conferences, and legalisms, that may or may not achieve much, but sure does sound good in a Joint Communique from Bruxelles.
 
Personally, I'm past worrying about Germany rising again...I'd kind of like Germany to simply "man up" and work, in a reasonable way towards a better world, rather than sitting around and when called on it, hiding behind phrases like, "Well would you rather have peaceful Germans or Warlike ones?"  There being a wold of difference between the US Army and the Wehrmacht and a world of difference between the Kaiser Heere, the Bundeswehr and the Wehrmacht...and that Germany can actually engage in combat and NOT be threat to everyone else.  Because basically, saying this is a "New" Germany and we don't want to be the "Old" Germany is just a cop-out, allowing Germany and Germans to do little of any substance, but feel like they're accomplishing something.  News Flash, by-and-large, you're not and if you want to achieve good in the world, you might, just MIGHT have to shoot someone...shooting someone does not make you the bad old Germany of the Drang Nach Osten, or Nacht und Nebel, or the Endlosung...it makes like any other country, in a morally defensible, but sometimes uncomfortable position.
 
Quote    Reply

ambush       12/7/2008 8:24:27 PM

 

Germany has got some major problems, although it is the EUs largest and most powerful economy right now.

 First,  noticed the way Merkel has been sucking up to Putin by her objection to NATO expansion and over Georgia. This is because 43 percent of Germany?s total natural gas consumption coming from Russia. Russia has used many excuses to cutoff or raise the price of that product in the past to gain political leverage and it can do so again.   Germany?s economy like almost the rest of the world is in a down turn and can hardly afford and energy crisis right now so it has to yield to Russian pressure

Germany still has an industrial/manufacturing export based economy. While it does turn out electronics, nobody talks about buying German made software or computers. They are competing with the Asian tigers while at the same time they have an increasingly aging population demanding more social services and shrinking population/tax base to finance it. Exports accounting for 45 percent of its GDP, 11 percent for the United States, 29 percent for the United Kingdom, 30 percent for Russia, 28 percent for Italy and 27 percent for France), the German economy could be severely affected by a worldwide recession that undercuts the ability of other countries to buy its products.

 They have no central bank to coordinate their response to the economic crisis which unlike the US is not about subprime mortgages but Enron like accounting of bank loans to corporation and the banks overvaluing corporate assets used to secure those loans.  Add to this is Balkan/Baltic overexposure. (I know the Germans like to blame the US for their crisis but the German Leadership has a long tradition of blaming others for their problems to appease the masses) Germany has announced a 70 billion euro ($95 billion) bank capitalization plan and up to 400 billion euros ($543 billion) for interbank loan guarantees and a second bailout proposal for real estate giant Hypo to the tune of 50 billion euros ($67.9 Billion).  Put this up against a GDP of only about $2.5 Trillion.

Germany?s military while relatively well equipped is been in decline for years like most of Europe.

 
Quote    Reply

JFKY    NGI   12/8/2008 11:06:04 AM
You talk about the NUMBERS of troops, funny you're a little short on accomplishments of the troops.  Kosovo was won with AMERICAN....not NATO and sure not GERMAN air power. And yes if you consider sitting around in kasernes watching the Kosovars purge the Serbs, or watch the Serbs chase the NATO forces out of north Kosovo to be an accomplishment, then by all means be proud.  You've accomplished much...of course it's not restoring Kosovo to anything like a democratic self-rule, unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, but hey you guys went and stood around a lot, and looked stunning in your outfits.
 
Look Britain has liberated South Iraq and fights in Afghanistan...the longest kill in sniper-land...Canadians at 2,500 metres...the Dutch, they're fighting in Afghanistan...the US we have medals of Honour in both theatres, IIRC.  What do you guys have.....900,000 bottles of beer to your credit...oh and some of you shouted "Sieg Heil" at the Minister of Defense when he visited the Balkans...a few "exposes" on the troops in Afghanistan...that's pretty thin gruel as compared to the efforts other nations, in the EU and outside the EU (Canada/Australia) have contributed.
 
As to why, well you know you guys didn't have to spend 1.5 TRILLION to integrate East Germany...in fact had you NOT done what yo did, you and East Germany would be a whole lot better off.  When you allowed the East German Mark parity with the West German Mark you blew it...and then you decided to transfer the Bundesrepublick's social, financial, and economic policies to East Germany.
 
Fine you made East Germany a part of West Germany, though the productivity of East Germany was far less than that of West Germany...just so the East Germans wouldn't feel "less than" the Westerners.  Well they were...West Germany had Mercedes, Ostis had the Trabi...and the result was massive unemployment and dislocation. Now Germany has trouble paying for its productive citizens, considering the economic/social policies of Germany, much less paying East Germans over $22/hour for work that ought to have been valued at much closer to $8-10 per hour.  Germany is in the boat it's in because you guys decided that you'd make Osti's "honorary" West Germans, even though they didn't have the economic infrastructure to justify it.  That was your call, but don't try to act as if it was inevitable, it wasn't.
 
So in Afghanistan you don't do much, in the Balkans you don't do much, and off Somalia it appears that your Rules of Engagement are going to prevent yo from doing much...sorry showing up to the soccer match, but not playing, isn't being on the team...its just showing up.  I'd like for Germany to do a little more than just show up.  Barring that please just don't show up. It's less cruel that way...
 
And let's don't talk about Afghanistan's "unpopularity."  Look dude you can disagree about Iraq, but Afghanistan is a very justifiable campaign, and it's in Europe's advantage too, but you guys aren't pulling your weight.  You are expecting, as usual, someone else to do the heavy lifting...Just like Kosovo, or the Balkans in general.  That was WHOLELY a European problem, and yet the Europeans didn't solve it...you waited for the US to take the lead and contribute the AWACS, the jamming air craft, the Stealth fighters, the Nimitz, and the precision-guided munitions that made the air campaign work.
 
As I say, I don't expect you to rise again, but how about you just do your part?  Contribute some troops that can shoot at the Taliban, and then send them to the South of Afghanistan to do some shooting...how about letting your 1,400 troops/sailors/airmen off Somalia behave in a proactive manner, to include shooting pirates.  How about the next time theres a bunch of nasty ethnic cleansing going on in EUROPE and the refugees are flooding Italy, Austria, and other EU nations that Germany and the EU nations ACTUALLY SOLVE THE PROBLEM?
 
I'm not asking that you contribute a Korps to invade Iraq...or ask that you devote 5% of GNP to defense.  No, I'm asking you to contribute a BRIGADE to Afghanistan, and let it be available, if needs must, to fighting...that you sort out European problems without resort to AMERICAN power-dealing with Russia is not a wholly European problem BTW and we're glad to help you guys in dealing with Putin's Imperialism....that you actually FIGHT pirates, not just show up...that's all I'm asking...
 
I apologize for seeming to insult you, as a German...I don't mean this to be a "flame war" like the "SBS is better than the SEALS" of "Turkey v. Greek, who better."  It simply is that Germany, and many in the EU have decided that "Soft Power" is the ONL
 
Quote    Reply
1 2



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics